The editor seems to have forgotten that women had long mingled in those “scenes” as patients and as nurses; it was only as physicians that they were being “protected” from them.
However, the “protectors” were loath to discontinue their gallant services and, following the protest of the Suffolk District branch of the State Society, the Council rescinded its vote, thus relegating the medical women to their pedestals.
But the Society continued in a state of unrest, friends of the admission of women gaining in strength and their opponents losing proportionately, though by-issues were also injected. Eventually, the inevitable was foreseen; the question remained only as to the form which it would take.
The handwriting on the wall was visible when in 1883 the Pennsylvania State Medical Society (!) sent a woman (Dr. Alice Bennett) as delegate to the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society. She was accepted officially, and she sat through the proceedings, and nothing happened.
At the annual meeting of the following year, 1884, the By-Laws were amended so as to permit of the admission of women on an equality with men; and then that storm center cleared.
An editorial in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, June 19, 1884, loyally accepts the action of the Society but it cannot forbear a little overflow of emotion in the following words:
... We believe that women in this particular community are already aided and abetted in too many foolish fads and fancies. There is too much bad piano playing and too little good cooking and sewing taught them....
[Many years later, the editor of this book met the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and in discussing the subject of medical women, she is glad to say he admitted that he had “readjusted” his “point of view.”]
Dr. Henry I. Bowditch viewed the action of the Society in a different light, as is shown in a letter written to Dr. Zakrzewska after the details of this advanced step had been arranged and the women were preparing to take the Society examinations:
Boston, June 15, 1884.
My Dear Doctor:
I thank you for the letter received yesterday. The result was entirely unexpected, and I can only thank God and take courage for the future days and for opportunities to fight for simple right and justice.
For I assure you that all through these years since I have advocated the examination of women by the Massachusetts Medical Society, I have myself stood upon the eternal foundations of justice to every human being. My old anti-slavery warfare and its principles, with the experience gained in that fight against prejudice, have been of immense support to me.
... I have always consulted with honorable, educated women, in spite of all By-Laws. At first I believe some of the bigots thought I ought to be punished. But I cared not a farthing for the dark hints of discipline impending, feeling sure as I did that light would appear the next day and that with the element of Time and simple justice on my side, Right would certainly prevail.
But as I now look back upon this final victory, and mark the various tyrannical rulings of our presidents and the stupid arguments urged by the opponents and their victories up to the present hour, with their final and, if not graceful, certainly good-natured and boorish submission to the fact of being in a hopeless minority themselves—I marvel, and, as I said above, take courage for any future fight for the True and Right.
Some of the arguments by our opponents in the council were so weak that I think they injured their own cause.
For example, Dr. —— says: “Our fathers never meant that women should be members, and how absurd it would be for us to admit them! They are different from men and cannot properly become our associates in medicine, etc.”
Dr. ——, with becoming pompousness of manner after duly twirling his gray mustaches, said: “I am not in favor of women being admitted because they have never done anything original.”
Dr. Wyman suggested that the names of Mrs. Somerville, Mesdames Boivin and Lachapelle in France and Jacobi in America certainly proved that women were capable of high intellectual work.
“I do not admit that they are exceptions,” replied Dr. ——.
I was fool enough to forget to ask what original work had ever been done by members of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and especially by the speaker himself. That would have floored our antagonist very effectually.
But let us not think of the past, but prepare ourselves for the future that is opening so brightly before us.
I am glad that the young students are preparing for the race. As for yourself, I do not wonder at your decision. You do as I think I should do.
Your “pioneer” race and energy will always command the respect of the community and of the professional men who know you and who are not bigots to a “Code.”
I remain
Very truly yours,Henry I. Bowditch.